


and in an ocean, i found peace

by sensibleshroom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Boba Fett Needs A Hug, Boba Fett accidentally adopts five children, DILF Boba Fett, Dad Boba Fett, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Give Him Kids, Good Parent Boba Fett, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, In the aspect that the slavers get dead, No Beta We Die Like Clones, Parental Boba Fett, Slavery, The Mandalorian Spoilers, eventual boba/din, slave children ocs, this is entirely fucking nonsensical, this is mostly just boba being a dad and din showing up later to reap the rewards, trigger warning anyways, well i am here to say he's a dad, y'all said Boba is a daddy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensibleshroom/pseuds/sensibleshroom
Summary: Boba Fett's primary plans for Tattooine were to kill Bib Fortuna, partially for the satisfaction, mostly for the criminal empire, take possession of said criminal empire, and become a king in his own right, because while he was never going to touch Mandalorian politics with a ten foot pole, he wouldn't say he wasn't entirely uninterested in having his own empire on the side. After all, a man couldn't hunt bounties forever. His knees certainly couldn't.His plans, unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, took a nosedive when he stumbled across a slave girl patiently waiting next to a dead body.He could tell Bo-Katan Kryze he wasn't a Mandalorian all he liked, but some things you just can't run from. Including ade, apparently. Multiple ade.Fennec is never going to let him live this down.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Fennec Shand, Boba Fett & Original Character(s), Boba Fett & Peli Motto, Din Djarin/Boba Fett
Comments: 88
Kudos: 412





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for implied sexual assault and graphic depictions of dead bodies.

They found her in the aftermath. A sweep through the palace that still stank of Hutt, even seven years later, turned up the young woman, a girl, really, sitting there, prim as can be on the bed next to a cooling corpse. It looked like a Twi’lek shaped bomb had gone off in the room, complete with the body of the foolish Human male with a deep, purpling ring around his neck in the exact shape of the chain still hooked up to the bed.

She was calm. A generic sort of Twi’lek, with pink skin and a pretty face, perfectly still next to her spoils of war. Stony cold eyes bore into Boba, and he found his lips twitching into a smile under his helmet at the quiet promise of pain in that gaze.

“I heard the shooting,” she said, calm, cool, collected, with that fake Core accent that got beat into the high end pleasure slaves.

“Did you?” He drawled, leaning against the door, and she swept a pink lek over her shoulder with clear disdain.

“Nora was screaming about a Mandalorian,” she said flatly, and Fennec glanced at Boba, waiting for a sign of what to do.

“Trust Mandalorians, do you?” Boba drawled, and the girl’s eyes went just a little bit harder.

“No.”

Nothing else was offered, but there was a quiet rage there, a statement of defiance: I’ll force your hand.

“Nora was also chained up to the throne the last time I checked,” the girl added, and his eyes drifted to the body on the bed. She’d fixed her own scanty clothes. She hadn’t fixed his. What a way to go. Cock out, pissing yourself, with a girl like that looking down on you in a way that screamed that this was a _job,_ not pleasurable in the slightest, but it was what she needed to do. He had to be scared out of his mind.

_Good._

“Fennec,” he ordered, and Fennec lifted her blaster. The girl didn’t twitch, didn’t move, but there was a flash of fear in her eyes even as she looked down the barrel like it was her salvation.

Interesting.

The muzzle flashed, the shot rang out, and the chain tumbled to the ground. The girl still didn’t move, her eyes calculating, seeing, dancer’s muscles tightened as she gauged the distance between the door and the people standing in it.

“Let’s get that collar off you and find you some other clothes,” Boba said and pushed him off the doorway, turned to walk out. The girl didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and he tilted his head just enough to look over his shoulder. “Coming, killer?”

Carefully, _oh_ so carefully, she unwound her tightly coiled muscles and stood up from the bed, looking like she was contemplating ripping his throat out with her teeth. Good instincts. She knew danger when she saw it, and clearly, she was dangerous herself.

Boba had worked with less.

There was a flicker of discontent, and then she wrapped herself in mighty airs to hide her nerves, bundled up the length of chain so it didn’t drag, and swept off into the hall ahead of them, head held high and lekku swaying. Boba’s nose crinkled under his helmet at the slinky, see-through silks Bib had wrapped her in. That was not going to do. She needed to be in _clothes._

“Seems a handful,” Fennec muttered as they watched the girl slow down, just to make sure they were following, like she was scared of being left behind, and Boba snorted into his vocoder.

“As she should be,” he decided, and strode to catch up with her. The droid torture chamber would have the tools they needed to get that collar off her neck. “Go get me some of my clothes from the shuttle. We can cinch the skirt to fit her.” He wasn’t going to be making her wear clothes peeled off a dead body.

“Huh. Wasn’t a myth,” Fennec muttered, and he bristled, but she was already walking the opposite way, leaving him alone with the scared girl that was doing her damned best to keep a stiff upper lip now that she realized she wasn’t going to be murdered right off the bat. There was uncertainty in her steps, suspicion in her eyes, but she wasn’t running off in tears like the other slaves they’d encountered, and he needed to have at least _one_ slave on his side to talk the rest into letting him scan for and remove their chips.

Tatooine was about to be seeing some damned _reforms._ He may have a complicated relationship with Mandalorian values, but a good chunk of them still stood, and ‘no karking slavery’ was one of them. He’d damn near put a blaster bolt in Jabba’s head when he tried to pass off that princess as a bed warmer. Her place in the moments that led up to him pitching into a Sarlacc pit notwithstanding, there was still a visceral sense of satisfaction that she strangled the slug on his own ugly pleasure barge.

“What’s your name?” He asked the girl bluntly as he caught up with her and turned down the corridor. She was shorter than she appeared, now that she was walking next to him. He could easily look over her head.

“... Juno,” she replied, wary eyes flitting over to him before averting.

“Last name?”

“No.”

Boba’s brow lifted under his helmet.

“No, you don’t have one, or no, you won’t share because it’s a slave last name?”

“I never picked one,” she said shortly, and Boba’s lips twitched.

“Juno, then.”

“You’re Boba Fett.”

“I am.”

“The older slaves said you wouldn’t take slaves in your bed.” _That_ was what he was remembered for around here? Not…

Alright, then. He could be remembered for worse.

“I don’t.”

That seemed to appease her, and something in the line of her shoulders relaxed. Not enough for him to think she wouldn’t outright attack him, but enough that he thought she wouldn’t do it right _now._

“How old are you?” He asked, and she glanced at him with thinly veiled suspicion. He felt cornered by a desert viper, waiting to strike but not wanting to risk its own neck to do it.

“Eighteen,” she answered, smooth and cool, and Boba felt something ugly twist in his gut. She had a _Core accent,_ but the odds of her being _taken_ from a Core world were slim at best, which meant---

He’d keep his opinions to himself for now.

“Where are all the slaves going to be hiding?” He asked and led her down a few more steps and into the bowels of the palace to locate the droid room.

“... Why do you want to know?” She asked, and he tilted his head to look her full on.

“Because I need you to take the scanner I brought and take out their chips,” he replied, matter of fact. “If you can’t tell me, that is fine. But you need to get it done for me.”

“... Me?”

“You’re the only one that hasn’t run off,” Boba said dryly. “So, yes, you. After I get that collar off and your chip out.”

And _different clothes on._ Eighteen and running around looking like _that._ The only thing keeping him from staring at her genitalia was common decency and an understanding of her youth, because the clothes were doing _nothing._ She was a _child._ As nauseating as Jabba had been, and he _was_ nauseating, at least _his_ pleasure slaves were generally older than _that._ At _least_ twenty in near-Human species, so as not to run off the clientele with a few more ‘scruples’, if you could call it that.

“... I will remove it myself,” she decided, firm and unwavering, and Boba conceded the point as he keyed open the door to the derelict room and cast about for the right tools. There hadn’t been droids down here in a long time. Bib Fortuna had never liked the things. A bit like Din, in that respect.

He wondered what Din would think of what he was doing here. He’d dropped him off with the bounty and taken off once he confirmed Din had gotten a ship, but the man had little knowledge of what Boba was planning with Fennec.

“It’ll be hot,” he warned as he brought up the tool to let her inspect it.

“That is acceptable,” she replied, and he clicked it on, pulling on the collar with one finger to burn through the metal, trying his hardest not to burn her skin. Juno went stockstill, eyes a little vacant, and he shore through the lock, letting the collar fall with a click.

“Now,” he said as her face went a little slack, only slightly, at the sight of the collar. “Let’s scan for your chip.”


	2. Chapter 2

Someone had put Juno in different clothes. Kizabet wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing, if she was being honest. She hadn’t seen Juno in anything but sheer gauze and jewelry in three years, which was practically the extent of Kizabet’s memory, given the fact that she was only seven, but now Juno was  _ not _ in her… uniform.

No, Juno was striding through the catacombs in roughly spun black fabric, a skirt swaying around her ankles and a shirt that was several sizes too large tied up at the waist to stay out of the way. The fabric was  _ thick _ and  _ loose _ and  _ modest _ and Kizabet wasn’t sure  _ what _ she was supposed to be seeing here, only that it was  _ happening. _

She’d never seen Juno look so  _ relaxed. _

“Juno…?” She whispered, and her sister in all but name ducked into her hiding place, holding out her arms for Kizabet to wrap her arms around her shoulders and cling to her waist.

“Hey, short stuff,” Juno said as one hand surreptitiously made its way down Kizabet’s torso to check her for injuries. “Are you okay?”

“There was a lot of shooting so Nora brought me down here,” Kizabet confided and Juno pressed their foreheads together, lekku curling in dissatisfaction. “I didn’t get hurt.”

“That so?” She asked and shifted Kizabet to one hip, a strong arm pinning her there as she made her way deeper into the catacombs. “And why are you all on your own?”

“Silas was mad,” Kizabet whispered, like it was a secret, and Juno snorted.

“Silas is  _ always _ mad, but I got something that might brighten up his day.”

Moving through the halls, Juno pressed a kiss to Kizabet’s temple and hefted her up a bit higher on her hip, a tiny hiss of pain escaping her at the motion, and Kizabet’s eyes narrowed on her with unnerving precision.

“You’re hurt again.”

“Not that kind of hurt,” Juno soothed her, brushing back unruly curls as she navigated the maze with confidence. “This is a good hurt, this time.”

“What kind of hurt is it?”

“The kind of hurt that tells me I don’t have a chip in my ribs, Kiz.”

Kizabet’s eyes widened and her mouth opened and shut several times, her hands winding in rough cloth, and Juno glanced down at her with a curl of her lips in wry amusement.

“The chip…?”

“I’ve got a scanner and scalpel and tube of bacta and everything,” she said slyly.

“... But he’s Mandalorian?” Kizabet was now thoroughly confused, because Juno had  _ told _ her about Mandalorians.

“... I don’t think he’s  _ that _ kind. He’s not… His armor’s different.”

“Don’t they  _ all _ have different armor?”

“Not like that,” Juno replied and hesitated. “He doesn’t share colors. And I never heard of Boba Fett running with  _ their _ kind. I think there’s lots of kinds of Mandalorians.”

“Why would they need  _ lots _ of kinds?” Kizabet asked derisively, and Juno shrugged.

“Mandalorians can’t get along with anyone else. Why would they get along with each other?”

Juno was being very soft for there being a Mandalorian shooting up the palace. She always  _ tried _ to be soft with Kizabet and the others, but there was ‘Kizabet soft’ and there was ‘forced Kizabet soft’, and Kizabet could smell the difference. Barely. As a Zabrak, she could smell  _ very _ well, and Juno smelled distressed, but… calmer than she should be. Juno didn’t  _ like _ Mandalorians. Certainly not enough to be this jovial over everything.

“Well, even if he’s not one of  _ those _ Mandalorians---” Kizabet started to say imperiously, but Juno’s sweat took a downturn into distress, and she fell silent. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, Kiz, of course not,” Juno soothed her and clutched her just a little tighter, borderline painfully, but Kizabet didn’t complain. “You need to stop listening to your nose so much.”

“But you said my nose doesn’t lie!” Kizabet complained, and Juno huffed out a laugh.

“It doesn’t, but sometimes it’s better to just  _ ignore _ what it’s telling you, yeah?”

Juno turned down a corner, and there the rest of the slaves were, staring at Juno with big eyes, asking her for all the answers, and she set Kizabet down.

“The Mandalorian gave me a scanner,” she announced. “And a scalpel and bacta.”

A stunned hush fell on the room as a collection of sentients all stared at Juno with big, big eyes. She swallowed and set a hand on Kizabet’s shoulder, pushing her to the tight cluster of the other kids, and Kizabet hesitated as Juno reached into a pocket in the skirt to withdraw a pouch.

“The kids go first,” Juno said firmly. “And we don’t go up until everyone is de-chipped.”

“Was it Boba Fett?” Silas asked loudly, and Juno nodded firmly.

“He says he’s not interested in slaves. I don’t know if I trust him, but---”

“If you don’t trust him, how can you trust his gear?” Silas demanded, the Human drawing himself up imperiously, and Kizabet bared her sharply pointed teeth on instinct.

_ “Kiz,” _ Ito hissed from behind her, and she glared at the Human teen.

“He can’t talk to Juno like that!”

“I trust his gear because he let me use it on myself,” Juno cut in. “Calm down, Kiz. Nothing to get offended over, yeah? Silas trusts my judgment.”

There was a sickly sweet scent of unease descending on the chamber, and this was  _ exactly _ why Kizabet had hidden away. She hated the smell of distress, and with so many slaves packed into a room while people were dying upstairs, it had been  _ rank _ in here. Juno had been missing, and she was practically the leader of the younger slaves. Her and Silas butted heads constantly, with him being the oldest slave they still had around, a whopping thirty-five years old, but even  _ he _ had seemed nervous at her still being locked up there.

Kizabet didn’t understand why everyone was so  _ nervous. _ Someone was here, and he had killed all the masters, and was letting them take out the chips. What was there to be nervous about? This was a good thing, wasn’t it?

“What does he want?” Silas demanded, and Juno hesitated.

“I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s us. Maybe he wants to start fresh, train his own slaves, but if we’ve got a chance to take out our chips, we should just do it and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”

“I want mine out!” Kizabet blurted, and a dozen sets of eyes turned on her. “It’s good, right? Taking out your chip? I want to take it out.”

“Kizabet,  _ hush, _ ” Olli hissed, and Juno licked her lips.

“I’ll take it out; don’t worry. It’ll just hurt a little, okay?”

“You tested it yourself?” Silas asked again, and Juno lifted the tied up shirt to reveal a bandage plastered across her ribs, far nicer than what a slave normally got, though the pleasure slaves generally got better care than the slaves who could do with a few scars not lowering their value.

“Look,” she said and reached into her pocket, pulling out something wrapped in torn black cloth, and tossed it to him. Silas caught it with wary precision, flipping it open to take in the sight of a bloody chip with tissue still clinging to it.

“... It’s out?” He asked, and his scent took a dip into something Kizabet had never smelled before. Why did his voice sound like that? Was he going to cry?  _ Silas?  _ Angry, aggressive Silas? He took beatings from Bib’s visitors on a regular basis. He didn’t cry unless someone  _ told _ him to.

“Pulled it out myself,” Juno confirmed. “I don’t know how long his good mood will last, and I don’t know if he’s found the detonators yet, so we need to work fast. There’s twenty of us, and we don’t have anything to numb the kids. I don’t think he knows where we are, but we can’t just stand around and argue about it.”

Silas’s hands were shaking, and Kizabet  _ still _ didn’t know what that scent he was putting off, the scent that was filling the room. Juno, it seemed, didn’t want to wait.

“Ito, come here,” she ordered, and Ito’s scent took a swing into distress.

“It’ll hurt…”

“Yes. But you want it out, right?” Juno prompted, and Ito hesitated before slinking forward. Kizabet’s eyes locked on the girl’s back, the way her hands trembled, the fear and distress pouring off of her in waves, but the Twi’lek simply grabbed her and pulled her in for a tight hug, lips pressed to her forehead in a promise.

“Haven’t I always kept you safe?” Juno murmured, and Ito nodded in an unsteady jerk, her fingers curling around the hem of Juno’s shirt. “Then let me keep you safe one more time, yeah? If he changes his mind… I know where the records are. I can wreck them. It’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Ito whispered, and Juno gave Kizabet a ‘Kizabet smile’ over Ito’s shoulder.

“That’s my girl. It’ll only hurt for a minute.”

Kizabet didn’t understand the fear, the bizarre scent surrounding her, the tentativeness of the moment. Juno was just doing what Juno always did. It didn’t seem all that different. Not to her.

Maybe the others should see it Kizabet’s way.


	3. Chapter 3

When Jabba ran his palace, the slaves had always been a mixture of young and old. Little ones had always been underfoot, easily bribed with sweets for information, and old women had been ghosts in the halls, tired and worn down, but in better shape than a slave found in Mos Eisley. You could see generations of suffering, something that Boba had always done his best to ignore, and now he felt like he was paying for it.

The oldest was at _least_ ten years younger than Boba. A tall, swarthy Human man, beautiful in a deeply rich way, with dark hair that curled up in a bun and clothes that were just shy of too tight.

There were _fewer_ slaves now, too. Only twenty, thirty at the most, not counting the toddlers and babies. Cautiously pouring out of wherever it was they had hidden, with cautious, considerate eyes, taking in all points of entry and exits, moving like hunted animals. For a moment, Boba considered the idea that Bib had accumulated debts and sold them off, but upon a closer inspection, he found himself wanting to cringe.

The lack of generations was somehow even more unsettling. Every last slave was aesthetically pleasing and humanoid. Mostly Twi’leks and Humans. Bib, always so consumed with appearances, had made sure the chattel reflected his obsession with looking the part. Like he looked the part at _all_ in the empty halls when Boba gunned him down. He’d probably made a fortune selling off seasoned slaves that were experts in running houses and moving unseen and unheard in areas where secrets flew.

He didn’t sit on the throne for this. It would have sent the wrong message. The bodies had been piled in a corner to be disposed of later, and he was sitting at the foot of the ostentatious chair, sipping on spotchka as he observed their approach, looking for the little ones that _should_ have been here but…

The adults were closely clustered around what few little ones there were. The Twi’lek that had been chained to the throne had a toddler on her hip, and a few other sentients had little ones in their arms, but the youngest that was old enough to be on their own was a little Zabrak girl with dark skin and nubbly horns and enormous eyes taking in the scenery, unruly hair hastily pulled into a nerf tail, her little fingers twisted up in Juno’s skirt. She looked young, maybe six or seven, and pressed in behind her were two Twi’lek children with nearly identical features, their skin a pale green with darker dapples on their lekku, clearly a boy and a girl. Twins. On Juno’s other side was a Human girl with wavy brown hair pulled into a messy bun and freckles, maybe thirteen, whose brown eyes were teary red, like she’d been crying.

They’d had a long day.

Boba needed more spotchka, and Fennec seemed to be in need of it, too, because she plucked the bottle from his grasp and took a long swig of her own.

“This is a mess,” she muttered and Boba’s eyes flitted to the blasters they’d stripped off the bodies, an idea filtering in his mind. It was a _bad_ idea, but… Well. He was wearing beskar, and Fennec was fast.

“You’re Boba Fett,” the man finally said, apparently the self-ordained leader, and Boba beat down the urge to pluck the bottle out of Fennec’s hands.

“I am,” he replied, and the man’s eyes hardened. Had Boba once seen him in Jabba’s palace? Had he been here long?

The man withdrew a pouch dripping with thick, dark liquid and tossed it in front of Boba. The bag upended on itself, spilling over to reveal chips with tissue still clinging to their circuits. Enough explosives to take them all out.

Boba didn’t budge.

“What are you aiming at?” The man demanded, shifting ever so slightly to place himself in front of Juno and the little ones, and Boba stared at him impassively.

  
  


“I’m aiming to take over the criminal empire Bib Fortuna has been running into the ground like the idiot he was,” he replied evenly. “And I don’t think an empire built on the backs of slaves is the kind of operation I want to be running.”

“You were fine with _working_ with that empire,” the man spat, and Boba inclined his head.

“I was,” he conceded, and a beat passed, as if the man was actually shocked he was willing to admit to it. The silence drew out, and Boba opted to break it. “I have taken control of Bib Fortuna’s accounts. Including the accounts he inherited from Jabba. If there’s a single person in Hutt space connected to Bib’s business, I can buy them. That includes Tatooine. I’m giving you all carte blanche to take the blasters there on the floor, the skiffs and speeders owned by the targets, hell, you can take any ship you want but mine. Go to town. In exchange for your freedom, all I’m asking is that you spread the word of the change in management, however you see fit. And if you want a job… I could use some help clearing out the Hutt stench.”

Stunned silence greeted him and fervent whispers in the one language his father had never taught him broke out, and Boba stood up, gesturing for Fennec to follow him.

“I’ll be on my ship,” he said. “If you’ve got frustrations to take out on the bodies before I dispose of them, feel free. Killer over there has already made her feelings clear.”

Juno’s lekku flushed a deep, dusky rose at the comment, and he caught her gaze, something akin to amusement flickering in his eyes before he turned on his heel, deliberately putting his back to the rightfully-angry slaves he had just given blasters to, and made his way for the doors. He couldn’t sit in this stench for much longer. It would take some industrial cleaners to get it out. Pain in the shebs, if you asked him, but he’d manage.

Nobody moved to shoot him, which he considered an improvement. Once they settled, either they would all be gone, or they’d have a list of demands rung up. He didn’t mind either way. He was willing to negotiate. He had the accounts and the know-how of running an empire, they had their right to a slice of it. He wasn’t going to be a _beast._ Maybe not a good man, because a good man would have freed them all and handed everything over, but certainly not a _beast._

It wasn’t until he was at the ship that he realized he had just, essentially, started a state sanctioned slave revolt. There was no karking way they were going to _not_ go to town on Mos Espa and Mos Eisley and start gunning down slavers and letting friends they’d lost loose. He’d left them with a scanner and everything.

“Only you would institute a government by starting out with good old fashioned anarchy,” Fennec said in amusement when they slid the door shut, and Boba grunted, setting his helmet down and taking the bottle from her.

“Better to let them get their feelings out on the whole of Tatooine than out on us,” he said and took a swig. The burning liquor trailed down his throat, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with a loud sigh.

“You seemed pretty attached to that Twi’lek kid,” Fennec said and swiped the bottle back.

“You don’t seem pretty attached to your liver,” Boba shot back and she actually laughed at him.

“What if she doesn’t come back? She’s got your clothes.”

“I have _Jabba the Hutt’s_ accounts; I think I’ll be fine,” Boba replied, but his thoughts drifted to red rimmed eyes and tiny hands clinging to skirts. Identical gazes of mistrustful judgment, the silent condemnation in the eyes of the twins, and _kark,_ that was going to be on his mind for a while.

“You could have at least asked that man for his name,” Fennec commented, offhand, and Boba stared at her.

“If he wanted me to have it, he would have said it.”

“Hm. You think they’ll be back?” Fennec asked, and Boba shrugged.

“If they want to come back, they’ll come back, and dwelling on it won’t change their decisions on the matter.”

Jango would have been disappointed in him, working with Hutts. No, not just disappointed. Possibly a little betrayed. Boba would never be able to ask his father for absolution, probably because for all of Jango’s hatred of slavers, he was probably the worst and most prolific slaver in the galaxy, and he was a hypocrite. At least slavers acknowledged their victims were sentient. Jango had refused to even see the clones as people, just to deal with his guilt.

Boba had a lot of complicated feelings about Jango he was still coming to terms with years later, and the judgmental gazes of slave children weren’t helping in the slightest.

“It looked like Bib was worried about appearances,” Fennec added, and he looked over at her, taking in her sharp eyes boring holes into his face, like he was going to entertain that vein of conversation.

“And look where that got him,” he countered, and that was that. They had messages to send and contacts to pull and information to disseminate. In the aftermath of the fall of a weak, ineffectual leader, time was of the essence in seizing control. He needed to call up the best bounty hunters in the sector to throw their lot in with him, reach out to smugglers and pirates and see what alliances could be gained before he started making his mark on Hutt space. Jabba’s influence had shrunk considerably since his death, and Bib had lost half of the damn sector thanks to weak deals and no one taking him seriously. Jabba would have _never_ feared Boba walking into his court like that. It didn’t matter how many sycophants Boba gunned down. He would have _liked_ it. Bib was on his last legs, and he knew it.

The pre-prepared messages were spun up and sent out, Fennec and Boba working in tandem. Having her at his side would just lend to his legitimacy. Everyone feared Fennec Shand, and Boba Fett rolling in with her as his second in command would only strengthen his position. And, in turn, if he succeeded in taking control, the message would be sent loud and clear for Imperials and New Republic forces: she was bought out and under his protection. Half of the bounties would drop off, and the rest would be killed off by proxy of people scrambling to get in their favor.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

He put ideas of the slave children and Juno out of his mind in the meantime. Juno could _clearly_ take care of herself, and even if he didn’t see any clear parents in the cluster of freed slaves, Juno was evidently capable and willing to take care of the little ones. He was too damn old and had done too many terrible things to worry about children judging him. _Fearing_ him.

She was too damn young to be taking care of _four_ kids. Maybe that older male slave would help out. He seemed protective.

Yeah. The kids would be fine. Slave children were hardier than ninety percent of children in the galaxy. Slave children in Hutt palaces were even hardier.

They’d be fine.

And he had work to do.

.

.

.

.

.

He’d stopped worrying about them every ten minutes on the third day. On the fourth day, he stopped worrying every thirty minutes. On the final day of the week, he had gone a full hour without his thoughts drifting back to that quiet defiance and little fingers tangled in his skirt.

It was only natural that they showed back up in a speeder with blaster marks, Juno covered from head to toe in various fluids, the Human girl splattered with dried Human blood she’d tried to wipe off, and the twins and the Zabrak plastered in more dirt and soot than clothes. Boba wasn’t sure what he was seeing, honestly, except five tired kids fresh out of a war he’d let them march off to, because he didn’t have a right to tell them they _couldn’t._

The little one’s fingers were still wrapped around the skirt, and Juno looked up to him on his throne with a stiff upper lip and hard, angry eyes that just _screamed_ that she wasn’t going to ask for help.

“If you give me access to the washing units, I’ll have your clothes cleaned up and returned to you,” she said, because she wasn’t going to _owe_ him, she was never going to _owe_ him, and Boba…

Maybe it was Din’s fault, that his heart softened in his chest that was a size too small to fit it.

“Do you have any others?” He asked, because Fennec had left two days ago and come back from the spaceports with brightly colored clothes that were suspiciously child sized, because of _course_ Fennec did, and told him she’d charged it to one of his personal accounts.

Juno hesitated, looking a little lost, and Boba’s heart turned into something vaguely resembling putty as the little Zabrak girl shyly hid behind her skirts and the twins bristled in a challenge. Juno didn’t have to answer that question. She didn’t have anything.

“My second stumbled across some clothes,” he said carefully, and Fennec snorted from her perch on the arm of his throne, too quiet for anyone but the little one to hear. “All five of you, go take a real shower with water in the guest quarters. I’ll have her bring up towels and clothes.”

Five sets of eyes widened to enormous proportions at the declaration of using _real_ showers with _real_ water, and Boba waved a hand.

“You know where they are. Go.”

“I…” Juno trailed off, but the little one yanked on her skirt to whisper something in slave talk, eyes huge and sparkling with the promise of something she had never once had, and Juno’s shoulders relaxed. “Fine. We’ll be out of your hair soon.”

And, with that, she lifted the little one up, took the hand of the girl twin, and the girl took the hand of her brother, who grabbed the Human girl, and just like that, the ragtag band of children were scurrying out with the silence of slaves, heading for the guest chambers and the first water showers in their lives.

“Din is going to lose his mind,” Fennec said dryly, and Boba leaned back in his throne, letting the sound of a door slide shut echo through the quiet halls that weren’t quite open for business yet.

“How many is that now?” He asked, and Fennec leaned against the back of the throne.

“Seventeen.”

“They’re not going to be working. I won’t allow it.”

“Then you’d better figure out what they’re going to be doing that they’ll agree to. They’ll take off otherwise,” Fennec commented, and Boba hesitated.

… Well. There was one way to get them to stick around.

“... If I made their job training, do you think they’d catch on?” Training as in actual education modules and maybe hand to hand fighting…

Not unlike a foundling.

_No,_ he was _not_ going to be going there.

“You’re going to be adopting them in a week,” Fennec said and stood up. “I’ll get them their clothes and some toiletries. I think they’ve earned some soap and shampoo for the hair, don’t you?”

“Make sure they have mouth capsules,” Boba said before he could stop himself. “... And deodorant for the teenagers and---”

“I’ll worry about getting them clean. _You_ worry about talking Ulyssia into getting them something to eat and something sweet,” Fennec said and swept off down the hall to get the kids sorted.

Boba was really in over his head this time. Criminal empire? Fine. Figuring out what to do with slave children with nowhere to go?

Not in his realm of expertise. Not at all.

He was just going to have to wing it.

Kark it, he only knew Juno’s name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to put in my tumblr on the last two chapters!! Whoops
> 
> tumblr: [ psychicshr00m](https://psychicshr00m.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Anyways, I'm actually obsessed with how Fennec is acting as a wingman, except instead of getting a relationship, he's getting like five fucking kids.


End file.
